Miners not told full story about their plight.
Look around yourself, the life being sold to you. What is their motivations, why do you have the outlook you have? What do you drive, consume, where do you shop, what do you think, what is the source of your opinions, what is color of your walls, the brand of your television, how many hours do you spend on video games, do you reflect upon the foods you eat, marketing campaigns that manipulate you, the lyrics of the music you pick, the location your automobile was built, the materials used to construct your home,....
You exhaust me and your ignorance scares me. No offense but you say your awake and nothing is controlling you or that you are the master of your existence or that there are no people or organizations controlling your behavior, then we are all fucked. Let them google us, map us, chip us, Real ID us, database us, limit us with one size fits all bureaucracies and silicon valley engineered scripts. I feel real safe with thinkers like you. Who is ridiculous? Go accessories your iPod
Oooooooooooooo, buddy, you really shouldn't get into this with me. I will simply outclass you in this particular philosophical concept. I guarantee you that I've looked far deeper into this idea than you have.
The liberal agenda seeks to create a system where we are more easily controlled, although it may be through the intention of being able to give everyone a fighting chance, it'll still end up in large government keeping tabs on everything we do. Believe me, I get it. I know about the ID chips, the bureaucratic bullshit, FBI monitoring our computers, blah blah blah. No shit it's all a means of control. This is a mass society where the government has to provide us with laws and protection. There are sacrifices in freedoms and privacy. We're not anywhere NEAR the world of 1984 just yet, though, pal. So get over it. But are you honestly trying to convince me that some major conscious being is controlling all of this? Everything we do? That's entirely stupid, and a conspiracy theory that I see no evidence of. I'm a libertarian (for the most part), and an atheist. I feel we should have as many freedoms as possible, and I'm not diggin' socialism and excess taxes. However, Socrates has warned us about the easily swayed public by crafty orators, and I see it every day, with politicians promising bullshit that will ultimately decrease the wealth of our nation's people, religious institutions scaring people into having certain ridiculous morals, even private businesses practicing psychological techniques to shove their clients' products down our throats. Its all very scary, and OH SO imprisoning, right? These people don't WANT us to know about these techniques and whatnot. But the thing is we DO know. The knowledge is the key. You talk as if I was manipulated into liking the products I buy. 'Yes, I like computers. They can do a lot for me. I think I'll get a good one. Same with anything else I feel makes me happy.' Are you telling me I would never have thought a computer or a beer or a movie was any good if someone hadn't been controlling my way of thinking in some omniscient way? Sorry, but that's retarded. I enjoy being lazy while still having my mind stimulated. This is a naturally occurring want, and a computer fulfills that want. Beer gets me drunk. I like being drunk. It makes me happy. No one instilled these ideas in my head with some massive, diabolical scheme. Our economy is based on giving the people what they want. The biggest controlling factor in this system is, as I've stated multiple times, priming. Fuck priming. However, because I know about it, I still have the ability to make an educated decision on the products I buy, not based on emotion (I hate shopping anyway) but based on logical reasoning of what best suits what I want. Competition allows this. So in economics, it's all good. Knowledge is key to disallowing others to control us in this conspiracy kind of way, as well as being good at it, yourself, to sway the public to push for policies that allow us to make these decisions for ourselves. If you think the government is keeping shit from us to keep us in some kind of set path, you're sorely mistaken. Yeah, they like to keep their fuck ups under wraps, but who doesn't? If they refuse to tell us something for what they feel is our own sake, than whatever. It IS their job to know what should be confidential. I don't think you fully understand human nature if you believe they just like to control us for the sake of controlling us.
Now back to your ridiculous idea of defining our confined existence as enslavement. I'm a determinist. I understand the concept. My path may be set on the rails of causality, but that doesn't mean my decisions aren't my own. I'm confined to doing what I feel is best for myself, and what makes me happy. My brain is hotwired to think in a certain way that it understands certain stimuli as good, as well as other stimuli as bad. If you think this is enslavement, think a little harder. What would escaping this path really be? If something isn't based on causality, with certain structures like our world to keep the train of it moving, then it is solely based on randomness, which is a system where we REALLY have no control.
I fight long and hard to keep others from influencing me without my knowledge. It's cost me quite a bit, but hell, I prefer not to be duped. My future involves expanding my love of something that makes me happy, like films and women and science, as well as ethics. No one had a grand scheme that made me think these things were awesome.
You're free to make your own decisions to a VERY LARGE DEGREE in the US. It's a highly developed country where the rules of the jungle are put to a minimum with the cost of not being able to shoot a guy in the face, or drive while intoxicated, or diddle little kids by luring them via internet. A small price to pay to be able to contribute to society in a way that makes you happy. It takes a lot of hard work, and in many cases, the proper culture to start in (so you don't end up in a gang, or something) but no system is perfect. Get over yourself, and quit thinking you're "seeing the man behind the curtain". You're not enslaved.
P.S. I don't own an iPod, but a Zune (because they're actually better), nor do I own a video gaming console (waste of goal-oriented energy), NOR do I drink any cheap, heavily advertised beer (like Bud or Coors. they all suck. quality is key, and that's DOGFISH!). THEY PUT TRACKING CHIPS IN THEM!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Meh. IF Potome were in fact 39, that only means he grew up with Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, the Electric Company and, possibly, Villa Allegre rather than Barney. So, really, no points made there.
This is why we can't have nice things.
And just what the fuck is wrong with The (original) Electric Company??
What the question really should be is, are they 1) malicious lies, or 2) for our own good, or 3) because no one wants to be the one who breaks the bad news, so the lie continues to purpetuate?
there's an analogy you can contemplate for both the existential stuff as well as apply to solid things like these miners
I suspect the answer might often be the last. It is a really hard psychological blow to ones own mind to have to be the one to tell an awful truth to another.
Miners not told full story about their plight.
''''
From the article:
Authorities believe it would be too much of a psychological blow to tell the miners that experts estimate it could take three to four months to drill the men out
And to go back to a previous digression, I think a better term for these "Prisons" would be to just call them Boundaries. That is something I can see guiding or controlling most aspects of everyone's life. Actually, Life itself would be a boundary. You only get from when you're born to when you die.
But Boundaries are much more malleable than Prisons. You can push and stretch them. Get modern science to let you to live longer and better, find ways to circumvent power and class structures.
Well said, Nate.
Most people willingly confine themselves to only the information that they want to know about and do not wish to know the horrors of the world. They would rather live in the sheltered illusions set up for them by the guiding hands of those in "power". That's why they allow them that power in the first place. You can expand your boundaries of knowledge, but that expansion always comes at a cost. This has been known for thousands of years and it isn't likely to change soon. Hell, just think of the allegory of the cave and you get the perfect response to at least the philosophical points of this thread.
Actually, it works quite well for the miners too.
Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
I think I found the biggest logical gap in metropotome argument. He argues that the government, secret society, higher power actually cares about what we think. If there even is one of these things I'm doubtful they actually give a shit about us.
"The rat inside your brain rules the world."
Citizen Kane SUCKED!!!!!!! True fact.
Alcoholism is the cure not the disease.
What the question really should be is, are they 1) malicious lies, or 2) for our own good, or 3) because no one wants to be the one who breaks the bad news, so the lie continues to purpetuate?
there's an analogy you can contemplate for both the existential stuff as well as apply to solid things like these miners
I suspect the answer might often be the last. It is a really hard psychological blow to ones own mind to have to be the one to tell an awful truth to another.
Miners not told full story about their plight.
''''
From the article:
Authorities believe it would be too much of a psychological blow to tell the miners that experts estimate it could take three to four months to drill the men out
And to go back to a previous digression, I think a better term for these "Prisons" would be to just call them Boundaries. That is something I can see guiding or controlling most aspects of everyone's life. Actually, Life itself would be a boundary. You only get from when you're born to when you die.
But Boundaries are much more malleable than Prisons. You can push and stretch them. Get modern science to let you to live longer and better, find ways to circumvent power and class structures.
This whole topic has brought to mind that 80's movie They Live .
I haven't seen it since I was a little kid, if I remember correctly it ended with all the subliminal control and aliens being reveled everywhere then that was it, or maybe that was just when my mom turned the TV off, either way, I wonder what happened after everyone knew the truth. Like the next day.
I'm not sure I believe in the idea of forbidden knowledge, though it is enticing indeed. Maybe knowledge the average collectice simply cannot or could not comprehen yet. You have to learn the Alphabet before you can read the Odyssey sort of thing. You have to learn your numbers before you learn multiplication ect. Following that reasoning it could be said we are barely out of metaphoric grade school, perhaps, as a species.
I think that might be exactly what you were saying and my typing my version was a little silly.
You are that guy from that Ayn Rand book !